As rioters smash and pillage every symbol of the exiled president’s 'ancien regime', the military is reasserting itself

Slideshow: Tunisia riots

Rioters burn a police officer's hat during clashes in central Tunis, during what has come to be known as the 'jasmine coup' (Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

In the rich suburbs of Tunis, by Hannibal’s ancient city of Carthage, the
rioters picked their targets as the country’s “jasmine revolution” reached
its climax. A police station was set ablaze. The mayor’s office was torched.

An office of the ruling party spewed flames. Several supermarkets, including
the French chain store Monoprix, were looted.

The focus of the angry mob, however, was the villas of the ousted president’s
family, whose members were despised for living a life of excess as ordinary
Tunisians struggled to survive. At least half a dozen of the villas were
pillaged.

In the suburb of El Marsa, one villa said to belong to a nephew of the
president’s reviled second wife Leila, a former hairdresser whose family has
become the richest in the land, had its metal front door ripped off its
hinges and its plate windows shattered.